The love story in this part of the fabulous desert begun by telephone and dialed the wrong number. It is almost finished with the death of the couple in the hands of Islamic extremists who see their love story "haram" - forbidden.What happened between the two is a study of how Al-Qaeda linked militants terrified population, whipping women and girls in northern Mali almost every day for not adhering to its interpretation of the moral code known as strict Sharia law. It is also a testament to the violent confrontation between Islam brutal, relentless invaders and moderate version of the religion that has long prevailed in Timbuktu, once a center of Islamic culture. Salaka Djicke has a round face, big boned girl thighs wider still in vogue in the desert, the soil does not forgive that a lot of women without curves. Even the Islamist and transformed his world, 24 years old, he lived a life relatively free.
During the day, she helped her mother bake bread in a clay oven, selling each piece inflated 50 francs (10 cents). In the afternoon, grilled over a wood fire and skewers sold on the roadside. He saved money to buy makeup and get their hair style.Like her sisters and friends, spoke openly with men - including strange mistakenly called more than a year ago.The man thought to call his cousin. When Salaka voice apologized. His voice was soft but firm with the pace of the authority of a man in his prime. Sound was pretty, and her laughter betrays his youth.They began to talk.A few days later, he called again. For two weeks, they talked almost every day, until we asked for directions to his house.He explained how to find the mud house on Route 141 on the water tower, also of clay, in an area less than a mile from where he would sell gas cans on the road . No time to wear a yellow dress.He arrived on his bike.He was older - do not know how many years - and already married, a state that has no taboo in the Muslim-majority region, where men can have up to four wives. He thought it was beautiful.Since that day, telephone conversations ends with the sentence: "You Bani" or "I love you" in Sonrai. Salaka Instead, he called his "darling" - French girl, still speaks in this former French colony.It covered gift, a piece of fabric 6 feet long Bazin, hand dyeing, polished cotton, which is the cornerstone of fashion Mali. It was a royal purple, and paid for it to enter into a two-piece suit, with a grand gesture like orange flame brocade gown.
He asked, and went to a study of street photography. They stood in the background shows a cascade blue enamel. He put his arms around her and invited her to sit on his lap.When the first group of rebels who have carried the banner of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad went outside his home on April 1, the two had seen for several months. He called to see if I was okay.These fighters were wearing military uniforms, have clearly expressed their goal: they wanted to create an independent homeland called Azawad Tuareg people of Mali marginalized.A few days later, another group of fighters arrived, wearing a beard and clothes that looked like kurtas common in Pakistan and Afghanistan. His black flag seemed that the only people visible in the YouTube video posted by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. They called Ansar Dine or "Defenders of the Faith."A brochure that illustrates how a woman should wear the veil, and she could and could not be seen. Avoid contact with women, leaflets handed men.One was the boyfriend Salaka. He rode his bike to his house to give him.You do not have enough money to buy the veil transparent, colorless necessary to cover the whole body. So her boyfriend went to the market and paid for two people, one red and one blue. Saharan African women are so accustomed to using bright colors, he could not find anyone who was black.As their love story became more intense as the repression of Muslims in the north of Mali, an area of equal size in Afghanistan.
Three months after his arrival, he arrested a man and a woman illiterate, two pastors dirt poor who have lived together for years with their animals outside the city of Aguelhok. The man had left his wife to satisfy his teenage love, with whom he had two children out of wedlock, younger than six months.In the last week of July, the Islamists have reached the gypsy camp and arrested. They were taken to the city center, where it was announced that the couple was stoned to death for adultery.They dug a hole the size of a man and forced to kneel on the inside. They made the villagers come to see that the Sharia.Then, cast the first stone.The fear was palpable schedule in the streets of Timbuktu. Salaka and stopped seeing her boyfriend in public. When he arrived, they sat in the courtyard of the house of their fathers, behind the veil of chrome walls of red earth.Even relatively modern Timbuktu, it was not considered appropriate to leave the couple alone in a room. So he arranged for a friend to give him the keys to his empty house in a neighborhood less than a mile away.Please do not join them for an hour, once a week?He hesitated. She asked him, saying he could not be without it. They determined that police patrols arrested 10 Islamic pmShe was once returning home safely. He leaves.They began to meet once a week. He insisted on staying no more than 40 minutes. He played his bicycle, stopping by the house and pushing the bike through a layer of sand to avoid attention.At that time, the Islamists have been hitting everyone, pregnant women and mothers of under 9 years are not covered in their entirety. A woman does not speak or even his brother on the porch of his house.At one point Salaka knew they were going to take. He predicted that he would say.In one version, she said it was her uncle. In another, he called his older brother. In another, they try to pass off as a married couple.On the night of 31 December, the two left the house in the west Salaka motorcycle and turned to road # 160.From bakery owned by a competitor of his mother. They surrounded a lane full of handmade bricks to dry. He turned left, then right again, take a detour to confuse anyone who might be following.As they approached, they chose the narrow streets, used only for motorcycles and donkey carts to the place of Islam police vehicles Toyota. They passed the house where he was to meet again and doubled in an alley. He cut the engine of the bike, told him to stay 100 meters behind him and pushed the bike in the sand as usual.
I saw him leave. He was breathing so hard that I was afraid of the stars could be heard. He spent the first intersection, then the second, then the third.Bearded men arrived on foot through the third intersection. There were four of them. Her lover jumped on his bike and pulled onto the sand. He was married and had paid a high price.He knew he could run faster. Then I woke up. And in the time it took to fall on him, he realized that it was useless to lie.She was taken to the police station Islamic, in a branch of a local bank. He put it in the closet as when the ATM machine and shut the door behind him.When she did not return home that night, the sister concern called his cell phone. Islamic police responded and told him where I was Salaka.In the morning, his family came to drop a piece of bread through the door openings, feed like an animal at the zoo. Later that day, police went to a prison that had set up only for women in one wing of the main prison of the city. For the next three nights sleeping alone on a hard floor in a large room with concrete.January 3, was brought before the Islamic court. Only eight days before French President François Hollande endorsed unilateral military intervention in Mali January 11 Salaka was sentenced to be stuck with a man who was not her husband and sentenced to 95 lashes. It was a severe punishment, even by the standards of the Islamists.She was taken to the market at noon on January 4, the same place where you bought your skewers and sold the flour used to make flat bread from his mother. Recognized providers of meat. One of them used his cell phone to record what happened next.The police made to kneel on a roundabout. She wore a veil of gauze, etc.. He was told to remove her dress, leaving the fabric to protect the skin against the whip. Curious children who push for a better view.What they did was seen by dozens of people in Timbuktu, and you can still hear the phone with the seller of the meat.The author of the crime and its punishment Salaka announced. Then he began to be equipped with a switch made from the branch of a tree. Their shrill cries writhing. You can feel the lash. You can hear her breathing.He hit so hard and so long that at one point I did not know if the veil had fallen. I felt the blood filters through.In the end, he said that if he had ever seen with a new man, he would kill her.Her lover called as soon as I got home. At night, he was captured, he fled to the distant capital of Mali, becoming one of the approximately 385 000 people have fled their homes since the north.He repeated over and over again: "I'm sorry." He promised to marry her. However, has not yet returned. Takes its name again, the return of Islamic extremists fear.His face heated when it comes to him and retracts when describing their pain and humiliation. He is a child who does not recognize said Timbuktu. Even now, avoids the market, sending his sister to buy meat instead."It was a tyrannical regime that had no pity for women," she said. "I'm not the only one who has been there. I did because I was in love."Last week Salaka was one of thousands of people took to the streets to cheer the French soldiers liberated the city. Folded into the sails and blue and red.These days, took his gift of love damask violet flame brocade modeled from the bottom of a pile of clothes that were not allowed to wear under the occupants of the city. He painted the lips of a transparent fuchsia. He went to the newly opened lounge.Photography studio where she and her lover cascade enclosed cardboard, so instead of your brother took a picture of him.If you look closely, you can see the marks left by the whip over her bare shoulders now.
Salaka history was reconstructed from interviews with her for three days. AP Salaka took journalists to the meeting room, where she was arrested, the ATM cell and the market. His family, municipal officials and several witnesses confirmed flogging, and a seller of meat shared with the access point of a sound recording that captures the judgment and cries. The story of the stoning Aguelhok is the mayor.
